Cream-Based Pasta Sauces

Heavy cream, because it is so receptive and forms so perfect a medium for other flavors, is often simmered with one or more aromatic ingredients to make a rich and flavorful pasta sauce. Unlike butter, which turns oily if overheated, cream thickens just enough so that it coats the pasta with a suave and velvety sauce. Pasta cream sauces require little effort—ingredients are simply infused in the simmering cream until the sauce thickens slightly. Almost any flavorful ingredient can be infused in cream, but here are a few suggestions. The following ingredients can be used alone or in combination.